President Jonathan Grants Amnesty To Boko Haram Sect

Indications emerged last night that President Goodluck Jonathan may have resolved to declare amnesty for the Boko Haram sect.

This was the outcome of a meeting between the president and the leadership of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) at the presidential villa, Abuja.

This is even as Jonathan has summoned a security meeting with chiefs in the country, which will be held today at the presidential villa.

Jonathan also used the occasion to deny ever ruling out amnesty for the sect.

The president is expected to set up an amnesty commission to fine-tune details of clemency to the sect members.

Former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Prof Ango Abdullahi, told State House Correspondents after the meeting which ended at about11:30pm that the president's response to the call for amnesty at the meeting, which is sequel to the one held between the president and the NEF in May last year, was positive and that he assured the NEF delegation that the amnesty for the insurgents will be tabled before the security meeting today.

Abdullahi said, "The meeting is simply a follow-up visit on the invitation of Mr. President. Many of you will recall that about eight or nine months ago, we interacted with the president on matters of the nation.

We submitted a memorandum to him and he promised that he was going to look at our submission and he will call us back to further dialogue on the issues we have raised in our submission. Ans this is precisely what transpired today.

"The contention here that there are challenges in the country, especially in the area of security which is the greatest challenge.

What we discussed is that general opinion in the country is that amnesty should be factored into all effort made by government to overcome the security challenges all over the country or in most parts of the North.

Fortunately the president is already thinking hard on it.

And he assured us that there is a special meeting on the matter and that I'm sure that tomorrow something substantial will come out of that meeting".

Corroborating Abdullahi's disclosure, information minister, Labarn Maku also said the president has never said no to the issue of amnesty, adding that what the president is saying is that, just like in the case of Niger Delta, some structures and processes have to be in place before the amnesty option is fully explored.

The minister further explained that the insurgents need to be identified and come forward before the dialogue that would lead to the amnesty programme is put in place.

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